Safe driving laws lacking in Connecticut, report states

Connecticut is lacking in several critical safe-driving laws, including requiring rear-seat seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, according to a report issued Wednesday.

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety of Washington, D.C., issued its 25th-year look at laws that prevent fatalities, giving green, yellow and red ratings for states from best to worst. Connecticut has passed only eight of 15 laws in the report, giving it a yellow rating.

“Connecticut is missing some critical laws,” said Jacqueline Gillan, president of the Advocates. The annual cost to the state of motor vehicle crashes is $3.6 billion, according to the report.

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On rear-seatbelt laws, which would allow police officers to pull over a driver solely based on any occupant being unbelted, Gillan said, “Most of the rear-seat passengers are children and teens, and there are 17 states that have primary-enforcement seatbelt laws that cover both the front- and rear-seat passengers.

“We believe that every person in every seat in every ride should be protected by a seatbelt.”

The report states that more than half of those who died in passenger vehicles were not wearing a safety belt; 33 states do not require rear-seat passengers to wear one; and 17 do not even require front seat passengers to wear a seatbelt.

Another law would require all riders of motorcycles to wear helmets. “Motorcycle fatalities are now almost 5,000 fatalities per year and 93,000 injured in 2012” nationwide, Gillan said.

“What’s even more startling about this is the fact that figure on fatalities has doubled since 1997,” from 2,116, she said.

According to the report, 4,957 motorcycle-related fatalities in 2012 represented a 7-percent increase from 2011, but 31 states lacked an all-rider helmet law.

“Motorcycle helmet laws are going in reverse,” Gillan said. “There are fewer states that have all-rider helmet laws today than there were in 1989, dropping from 22 to 19. “We’re seeing pretty dramatic increases in motorcycle fatalities, and these laws are under attack in state legislatures,” she said.

Gillan said Connecticut had such a law from 1967 to 1976 and then reinstated it in 1990 for riders 17 and younger. “Age-specific helmet laws are difficult, if not impossible, to enforce because police officers cannot easily distinguish the age of a motorcycle rider,” Gillan said, making them ineffective.

While bikers say they should have freedom to ride without a helmet, Gillan said “there’s no such thing as a free ride” because the costs of caring for uninsured riders ultimately are borne by taxpayers. “It’s the state that picks up the cost of that,” she said.

State Rep. Antonio Guerrera, D-Rocky Hill, co-chairman of the General Assembly’s Transportation Committee, said there have been “long public hearings” held in which “we were overwhelmed” by those testifying against helmet requirements. Those opposed say they are an “intrusion” that limitS the ability to hear what goes on around them.

Guerrera said he agreed with the bikers. “It’s a difficult situation … It’s the freedom of the road that they believe in, and I feel like we’re taking away their right to use their apparatus.”

Another law lacking in Connecticut, “one of the most fundamental,” according to Gillan, is the open-container law, which would bar anyone in a vehicle from carrying or consuming alcoholic beverages. “In 2012, there were 10,322 people killed in crashes involving an impaired driver, nearly one-third of all traffic deaths,” the report states. Drunken-driving laws are also among those most lacking, with 39 states and the District of Columbia failing to have “one or more critical impaired-driving laws,” the report states.

Guerrera said open-container laws are tricky because it’s believed they can lead to racial profiling. “There’s some controversy in regard to inner cities and how they would regulate this,” Guerrera said.

The Advocates believe, however, that booster seats should be used until age 7, rather than the required 6 years old in Connecticut, and that the state should have a child-endangerment law targeted at impaired drivers.

Ten states and D.C. were considered “green,” with a minimum of nine of the 15 laws, while 11 were considered red, with six or fewer.

Call Ed Stannard at 203-789-5743. Have questions, feedback or ideas about our news coverage? Connect directly with the editors of the New Haven Register at AskTheRegister.com.